


Junaluska

by frankiesin



Series: Choir Tour is Wild! [1]
Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Church Setting, Childhood Friends, Coming of Age, Developing Friendships, Gen, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 03:51:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14926601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankiesin/pseuds/frankiesin
Summary: Jon Walker is trans. It wouldn't be a big deal except that his new youth group is very intent on seperating the guys from the girls. Jon doesn't want to give up his new friend group, not this soon.AU where Panic grows up together in a church youth choir and eventually everyone realises that they're trans/queer.





	Junaluska

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so. New fic series. Don't expect any kind of schedule because I have depression and no idea what I'm doing at any given time. 
> 
> Side note: Dallon is AFAB in this fic, and their deadname is Taylor. Once they realise that they're not a girl, they'll start going by Dallon. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Jon was terrified. It was hard moving from one state to another, but he was starting middle school and also a new church youth group. He was eleven, almost twelve, and he was joining only a few weeks before the confirmation trip. Jon's parents believed in God more than he did, but he was okay with getting confirmed. If he changed his mind later, he could always leave the church. 

 

Jon checked himself over in the mirror. He still looked like the boys his age, but he knew that would change soon. His parents knew he was a boy, and that God had messed up his genetics somehow and given him girl parts, so they'd put him on hormone blockers so that he wouldn't accidentally turn into a girl when he hit thirteen. 

 

Jon would go through puberty eventually. His puberty would involve more chemicals than most people, but he was okay with that. His parents were just glad that they'd gotten a son and a daughter. 

 

“Jon! Hurry up! I have to do my make-up!” Jon's sister called from the other side of the bathroom door. 

 

Jon startled and quickly combed his bangs over his forehead. He looked a little like Justin Bieber, which sucked because Justin Bieber was annoying. At least most of the boys his age also looked like Justin Bieber. Jon would fit right in. 

 

He let his sister have the bathroom and went back to his bedroom to collect his shoes and his iPod nano. He'd gotten it last Christmas, and he didn't have a lot of music on it yet, but he would soon. He just needed to get online and figure out how to move his illegally downloaded music from the computer to his iPod. 

 

His sister finished in the bathroom about twenty minutes later, and then the four Walkers made their way to the car. Jon plugged in his earbuds because his parents were playing weird 70s beach music and he was more into alt rock. He didn't have a favourite band yet, but he had Green Day's American Idiot on his iPod so he just listened to that all the way to the church. 

 

The church was big. Jon was a little intimidated by it, because the church in Chicago had been a tiny building squished in between two other buildings. This church was it's own entity, and it had a giant parking lot and a soccer field as well. 

 

“Where's the youth area?” Jon's sister asked as their parents pulled into a parking space. 

 

“It's on the far end,” their dad said. 

 

Jon nodded, and wound his earbuds around his iPod nano. He and his sister got out of the car and walked down the building together. They didn't talk. Jon's sister was in tenth grade, and she'd stopped seeing Jon as adorable and fun last year. Now he was an annoying brother that she didn't want to admit she was related to. 

 

Jon didn't understand it, but he assumed it was a teenager thing. He wondered if he'd ever get annoyed with kids when he was in high school, or if he would need normal hormones for that to happen. He'd find out in a few years. 

 

Jon pushed the doors open and was immediately greeted with two distinct smells: pizza, which he knew very well, and Chick-Fil-A, which was a new thing. There weren't Chick-Fil-A’s in Chicago, but they were everywhere in Atlanta. That and Waffle House, which Jon hadn't been to yet but had every intention of going to some day. He'd heard about Waffle Houses. They were the place to go for an adventure. 

 

Jon didn't know anyone, but he wasn't afraid of making new friends. He was good at that. He was awkward and had a noticeable lisp, but he knew a lot of cool bands and liked things most middle school boys liked. He was just trans, unlike most boys. 

 

There was a group of three in one of the booths lined up against the wall, and Jon decided that they looked like the kind of people he'd want to be friends with. There were two girls and one guy, which meant he would even things out. Jon grabbed his Chick-Fil-A and headed over, completely confident that they'd be friendly. If they weren't, that was their loss. Jon considered himself an okay guy to be around. 

 

Jon smiled down at the three of them. “Hi. Mind if I sit here?”

 

“Go for it,” the guy said, and moved his stuff over. He extended his hand. “I'm Brendon, by the way, and this is Taylor and Jane.”

 

“Dude, I go by Spencer,” one of the girls said. She had medium brown hair up in a messy, low ponytail and she hadn't lost any of her baby fat yet. She was also wearing a loose T-shirt with a sarcastic saying on it. She turned to Jon. “My first name is Janelle, but my parents called me Jane for forever, and I thought it was dumb so I go by my middle name. Which is Spencer, by the way.”

 

“I'll remember that,” Jon said. “I'm Jon, by the way. I'm from Chicago. I moved here over the summer.”

 

“That's cool,” Taylor said. She had straight bangs and her hair cut to her shoulders, but it looked like she was trying to grow it out. All three of them looked to be Jon's age, which was a good sign. He might not be alone on the upcoming confirmation trip after all. 

 

“So, what school do you go to?” Brendon asked. 

 

“Pickneyville,” Jon said. “I'm in sixth grade. What about you guys?”

 

“Taylor and I go to Peachtree Middle, and Brendon goes to Chamblee,” Spencer said. “And my friend Ryan goes to Peachtree too, but he doesn't always come to these things. He lives kind of far away and his dad can't always get him here.”

 

“He's going to Junaluska, right?” Taylor asked. 

 

Spencer nodded. “Yeah.”

 

“Hopefully we'll be roomed together,” Brendon mused. “I don't want to get stuck with people I don't know.”

 

“Well I don't know anyone, so I could be your roommate,” Jon offered. Brendon nodded, excited, and that settled things. Jon had friends now, and he had at least one roommate for the upcoming trip. He wouldn't see any of his new friends in school, but he'd see them every Wednesday and Sunday and that was enough to tide him over.

 

* * *

 

Ryan frowned. He was in the back of the Smith's minivan with Spencer, and they were on the way to church. Ryan hated church trips because they were a constant reminder of how poor he was in comparison to the other kids. Most of the kids got at least forty dollars from their parents. Ryan got a pack of gum and nothing else. His dad sucked sometimes.

 

Okay. His dad sucked pretty much all the time. Ryan just didn't want to admit that to himself. He was twelve. He was supposed to be concerned with puberty and voice cracks and girls, but instead he was thinking about how he was one bad night away from having CPS take him away from Spencer and all his other friends. 

 

Spencer leaned over and poked under Ryan’s ribs. “Dude. Snap out of it. You look like you’re in one of those sad music videos.”

 

“I could be,” Ryan said. He wanted to grow out his hair so that he could look like the hot guys on MySpace. He didn’t know if he could pull it off, though. He looked weird, not hot. 

 

“Don’t,” Spencer said. “Those videos suck.”

 

“Spencer, watch your language,” her mom said from the front of the car. Spencer sighed and rolled her eyes before leaning back in her seat and looking out of her window. They pulled up to the church, finally, and Spencer’s mom drove them around to the back where all of the other kids were unloading from their parents’ cars. Ryan cringed when he saw them. Everyone else at this church was rich, and had parents who loved them and bought them shit constantly. Ryan couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten new clothes from his dad. 

 

He followed Spencer and her mom around to the back of the car and pulled out his bag. It was old, and he'd had it since he was a little kid, but it hadn't fallen apart yet and that was all Ryan could hope for. 

 

“Spencer! Hey!” Brendon called out before zooming in and tackling her and Ryan. Ryan dodged him, but Spencer wasn't so lucky and let out an “oof” as Brendon grabbed her around the waist. 

 

Spencer punched Brendon's arm. “Dude. What was that about?”

 

“Come on, we have to get seats on the bus,” Brendon said. He grabbed the both of them and pulled them towards where the church buses were waiting. There were a lot of kids going on the Junaluska trip because it was the confirmation trip and everyone was pretty much required to go on it. 

 

The buses were huge. Fifty five passengers each, and there were two of them. Brendon dragged Ryan and Spencer onto the first one, all the way to the back. 

 

“Are Taylor and Jon here already?” Spencer asked. 

 

“Yeah, they're inside but they already got seats,” Brendon said. He pointed to a pair of backpacks near the back. “You guys can sit with me; I got the three seater in the back row.”

 

Spencer grinned. “Sweet.”

 

She and Ryan added their backpacks to Brendon's row of seats and then followed him back into the youth area. Ryan spotted Taylor immediately. She wasn't hard to miss, because she was taller than everyone else in their grade, and she was kind of awkward. She was standing next to a guy Ryan didn't recognise, but he assumed the guy was Jon. 

 

Ryan walked up to Taylor and Jon and waved. “Hey. You're Jon, right?”

 

The guy nodded. “Yep. And I'm guessing you're Spencer's friend Ryan?”

 

“Yeah,” Ryan said. He never knew what to say to new people. Ryan wasn’t awkward, but he had a hard time relating to kids his own age. Spencer, of course, was an exception, because she’d known Ryan since they were in kindergarten together. Brendon and Taylor were also exceptions, but that was because they were just as odd as Ryan was. Brendon was too hyperactive, and Taylor was really shy. 

 

Ryan wondered if Jon was an outcast, too, or if he’d eventually give up on the four of them and go become friends with everyone else in the youth group. 

 

* * *

 

Taylor leaned her head against the window. She hated long bus rides. She got car sick easily, and she didn’t have an iPod to listen to music with, so she couldn’t do anything to pass the time. It was the worst part of every trip. 

 

Jon tapped Taylor on the shoulder. “Hey. Did you wanna share earbuds? I promise my ears are clean.”

 

“Why wouldn’t they be?” Taylor asked. She took the earbud and looked it over. It looked clean. She put it in her ear, and didn’t recognise the music on the other end. She frowned at Jon. “Who is this?”

 

“They’re called Silversun Pickups,” Jon said. “I’ve got my music on shuffle, so if something comes up that you don’t like, just tell me. I can skip it for you.”

 

Taylor didn’t know how to tell him that she had no idea who any of these bands were. She wanted to know, because she liked Jon’s taste in music, but she didn’t want him to think she was a loser. Her parents only listened to Christian rock and classic rock. That was it. She didn’t know any current music, and she knew that she wouldn’t ever catch up to the kids in her grade when it came to pop culture. Taylor was trying to act like she knew what they were all talking about, but she was sure they saw through her farse. 

 

The music made the trip go by faster. Taylor barely noticed when they'd arrived at Junaluska, but she did notice when Jon tapped her shoulder and pulled at her earbud. Taylor gave it back before grabbing her backpack from the floor and following her friends off of the bus. 

 

They had parked outside of a large hotel. Taylor's youth director jumped up onto a pillar and clapped his hands. “Ok, everybody listen up! I'm about to read off your room assignments, so please pay attention! Also, remember: don't make purple. That means no boys in the girls areas and no girls in the boys areas.”

 

Jon laughed nervously. Taylor raised and eyebrow but didn't question it. Boys were weird now that everyone was in middle school. Taylor hadn't even thought about boys being cute yet. She'd started puberty, or at least the part of puberty where she got taller and developed breasts, but she hadn't reached the hormone part yet. Taylor wasn’t looking forward to it, either. She’d heard that periods were painful, and she wanted no part in that. 

 

Taylor and Spencer ended up in a room with two other girls Taylor didn’t know. Jon, Brendon, and Ryan were in a room together, but it was just the three of them. Taylor was a little jealous, but she supposed it made sense. The three of them were all friends now, and the other sixth grade boys had cliqued up. No one would want to fill the fourth spot in that room. 

 

Spencer and Taylor ended up in the bed by the window. Spencer dropped her suitcase at the end of it and then sat down on the floor. “This is so dumb.”

 

Taylor frowned. “Confirmation?”

 

“No,” Spencer said. “Separating guys and girls. Ryan and I share a room all the time. Sometimes Brendon’s there, sometimes he’s not. It’s not weird.”

 

“It’s a little weird,” one of the other girls said. Taylor was pretty sure her name was Sarah. “Boys are gross. They pee on everything.”

 

“Ew,” Taylor said. Jon, Brendon, and Ryan didn’t seem like most boys. As far as she knew, they only peed in toilets. She hoped that wouldn’t change whenever they hit their version of puberty.

 

* * *

 

Spencer hated most girls. Taylor was an exception because Taylor didn’t care about the Jonas brothers or Twilight or anything dumb like that. Taylor wore Chuck Taylors (and stuck her tongue out when people made the usual joke about her name) and cut off jeans and hung out with band kids. Taylor  _ was  _ a band kid. When Spencer hung out with Taylor, she didn’t feel like she was hanging out with a girl, and she liked that. 

 

The two of them were following the other sixth grade girls up to a room in the chapel to talk about Christianity. Spencer didn’t know if she believed in God. She knew God existed, but she had a lot of questions. For one, why did guys and girls have to be so different if everyone was made in God’s image? And why couldn’t guys and girls hang out without people assuming they were dating? Spencer didn’t want to date any of her guy friends, but everyone thought she was Ryan’s future wife or something. 

 

Spencer made a face. She didn’t want to be anyone’s wife. That sounded disgusting. Wearing a dress in front of a bunch of people? Ew.

 

“Alright, girls, everyone take a seat,” the youth leader said. There were three youth leaders at Spencer’s church: the main guy, the girl youth leader, and the intern. The girl intern was the one in charge of Spencer, Taylor, and the other girls. She was wearing a baby blue t-shirt and a pair of dark wash jeans and she looked like she was supposed to be in an Aeropostale commercial. 

 

Spencer hated her. She was boring. 

 

“So, one of the things we need to learn as women of Christ is how to respect ourselves,” the youth leader said. Spencer wasn’t really paying attention. She had her Bible with her. Her mom had made her pack it, even though she didn’t want to carry it around everywhere, and she was flipping through it. The only interesting book was Revelations, because everyone died there, and that was fascinating. 

 

Spencer had been put in school a year early. She acted like she was cool and mature so that no one would realise she was a kid. She hadn’t even gotten her period yet. All of the other girls seemed to have theirs. 

 

The meeting was long and boring. Spencer grabbed Taylor as soon as it was over so that the two of them could find the boys and get to the cafeteria before all of the good food disappeared. She hadn’t been to Junaluska before, but she’d been to middle school, and she knew how cafeterias worked. 

 

Taylor and Spencer found the boys, and then the five of them got food and snagged a booth by a window. There was a lake, but their youth leaders had said people couldn’t go swim in it. Spencer thought that was dumb. She and Ryan were on summer league swim team together, and Brendon was on a different team. All three of them knew what they were doing. They could easily cross the lake. 

 

Spencer slurped from her Diet Coke. “So. Anyone wanna swim across the lake?”

 

Taylor rolled her eyes. Boring. 

 

“For how much?” Jon asked. 

 

“Who says I’m paying you?” Spencer said back. She liked Jon. She hadn’t known him for very long, but he was cool and he was usually down to do whatever stupid thing she or Brendon came up with. Jon tipped the odds in their favour. Ryan was too angsty to do anything, and Taylor was terrified of getting in trouble. Until Jon had walked into their friend group, they’d all been at a stand still. Now that Jon was here, everything was better. 

 

“I said you were,” Jon said. 

 

Brendon stole one of his tater tots. “Spencer isn’t going to give you money.”

 

“Yep,” Spencer said. “Brendon gets it.”

 

“Spencer’s going to give you a kiss,” Brendon said, and then laughed when Spencer reached across the booth to hit him. 

 

“Shut up, I’m not kissing Jon,” Spencer said. She wasn’t. Jon was cool, but she didn’t want to kiss him. She couldn’t imagine herself kissing anyone, not now. She thought guys were cool and all, but she wanted to be their friends. If she kissed a guy, then she’d have to get married to a guy one day, and then she’d have to wear an ugly wedding dress and act like she liked it. 

 

She’d have to have long hair, too. Spencer did not want long hair. Her mom had let her cut it to her shoulders, but Spencer wanted it all gone. Like how Jon and Ryan had theirs, short and a little curly and sometimes spiked up. Spencer didn’t care if it made her look like a guy. She couldn’t stand long hair. 

 

“I’m sure kissing isn’t that bad,” Ryan said. 

 

Jon’s eyes widened. “Whoa. Have you kissed someone?”

 

“No,” Ryan said. “But I will. Soon.”

 

“Ryan has a crush,” Taylor said from around her straw. 

 

Ryan kicked her under the table. If they weren’t at a church event, he would have given her the middle finger. Ryan was cool like that. He swore and he flipped the bird and sometimes he stole his dad’s cigarettes and sold them to the eighth graders. 

 

Spencer grinned and kicked Ryan back. “Who is it?”

 

“No one,” Ryan said. “Shut up.”

 

“You’ll tell us eventually,” Jon said. He grinned, stole something off of Ryan’s plate, and then said, “so when’s the cross thing? Everyone keeps talking about it, but I don’t know what they mean?”

 

“Oh, it’s tonight,” Brendon said. “Everyone goes up to the top of the hill, there’s this really big cross that lights up, and we all try to touch it while praying. All of my older siblings have done it, and they all said it was life changing. So I’m looking forward to it.”

 

“I heard we get s’mores after,” Ryan said. “That’s what I care about.”

 

Ryan didn’t really believe in God. Moreso than Spencer did, which confused Spencer a lot. If Ryan didn’t believe in God, why was he here? It wasn’t like his dad made him go to church. His dad didn’t make him do anything. Ryan’s dad was as helpful as a potato, except that Ryan couldn’t eat his dad if he was hungry. He could eat a potato, though. 

 

“The s’mores’ll be fun,” Taylor said in agreement. “Hopefully they won’t make us go back to our rooms immediately after. We haven’t been able to hang out at all.”

 

Spencer agreed with that. She knew that this trip was supposed to be a serious trip, and that they’d be doing a lot of sitting and talking about being an adult and God and stuff. She still wanted time with her friends. She was eleven. She couldn’t just sit around all day. There were things to do, lakes to illegally swim in when no one was looking. 

 

After dinner, there was a worship service. The five of them ended up near the front, because Brendon’s mom was a chaperone and she refused to let Brendon hang out with girls if she couldn’t see him. Spencer didn’t know how Brendon was ever allowed to come over to her house, but she wasn’t complaining. Brendon was fun. Brendon was loud. Brendon could really fucking sing. 

 

Spencer elbowed Brendon. “Hey. Are you doing Youth Choir?”

 

“Yeah,” Brendon said. “My mom’s making me.”

 

“I’ll join so you’re not alone,” Spencer said. She couldn’t really sing, but it didn’t matter. She just wouldn’t try out for any solos, and she’d be fine. 

 

“Are you guys talking about choir?” Jon asked. He looked confused. “Do you guys have one of those?”

 

“Yeah,” Spencer said. “They go on a trip every summer. I think they’re going to DC this summer.”

 

Jon’s face lit up. “That sounds awesome. I’m joining with you guys, then.”

 

“Me too,” Taylor said. “My mom’s making me. She wants me to be involved with more church activities since I refused to go to the private Christian school my brother’s at.”

 

The four of them looked at Ryan as they all sat back down. Ryan was frowning. Spencer knew what he was thinking about: getting his dad to be okay with it. Ryan’s dad didn’t drive him places, usually, and Ryan hated asking people for help. 

 

“You don’t have to join,” Spencer whispered. “It’s okay.”

 

“Nah,” Ryan said. “I’m not spending the summer alone. I’m joining.”

 

Brendon grinned. He grabbed Spencer and Ryan’s hands, and squeezed them both. Spencer grabbed Jon’s, and he grabbed Taylor’s, and the five of them stayed like that through the entire message. Spencer didn’t remember half of it. She just remembered the feel of Brendon’s warm, violin roughened hand in contrast with Jon’s colder, slightly sweaty hand. 

 

Hands were nice. Spencer could do hand-holding. 

 

* * *

 

Brendon felt like he was on top of the world. He had friends now, and they were real friends, and they didn’t laugh at him when he was loud or roll their eyes when he got too excited while talking about things. Ryan was the quiet one, Taylor was the mom friend, Spencer was the leader, and Jon was the smart one. And Brendon was the funny one. The five of them were perfect. 

 

The cross was beautiful. It was at the top of the hill, and Brendon could see everyone’s faces reflected in the light. He could see the lake, kind of, and he could see all the little houses nestled in the mountains around him. This was what it felt like to know God’s presence. Brendon grinned to himself, and bounced on his feet a little. One of the guys next to him glared at him, and Jon glared back. 

 

Jon was kind of small, but he didn’t seem to care. He carried himself like he was about to get a huge growth spurt and get taller than Taylor. He was also barefoot, holding his flip flops in one hand as he and Spencer led the five of them back down the hill and towards the bonfire. 

 

Brendon reached over and took Taylor and Ryan’s hands. He liked holding hands with people. He did it with his parents until they told him he was too old for that, and he did it with everyone when he went to his grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving. Holding hands was important, and it was Brendon’s way of saying that he liked his friends, and that he wasn’t going to leave them behind. 

 

Ryan looked down at his and Brendon’s hands. “What are you doing?”

 

“Friendship,” Brendon said. 

 

“You can hold mine instead,” Taylor said. “If you’re going to be weird about it.”

 

Brendon laughed to hide that it hurt when Ryan let go of him. He just wanted friends. That was all he ever wanted, but sometimes he asked for too much. He was trying to get better at it, but no one would tell him when he was being annoying. People just left Brendon when they were bored of him. 

 

Taylor bumped her shoulder against his. “Hey. Do you want me to get you some marshmallows or are you coming with us?”

 

“I’ll come with you guys,” Brendon said, and put a smile on his face again. He couldn’t be sad. He was on a confirmation retreat with his friends, and they were all getting s’mores together. He’d found out that all five of them were going to join choir together, and then they’d get to hang out during the school year for at least an hour a week. Brendon was also doing bell choir and taking piano lessons, but he wasn’t going to make his friends join him. 

 

Brendon grabbed a stick and a marshmallow, and then he and Taylor returned to the fire. It was hot,as all fires were, and Taylor crouched near the bottom so that she could stick her marshmallow in near the coals. Brendon just stuck his into the fire and waited for it to burn. Once it was on fire, he pulled it out and blew on it so that the outside was charred and crispy but the inside was goo. 

 

“You’re disgusting,” Taylor said. 

 

“You don’t know good marshmallows,” Brendon said. 

 

Jon appeared on his other side. He and Spencer both stuck their marshmallows into the fire, and then they tried to set each other’s sticks on fire and Spencer lost her marshmallow. Jon blew his out and offered it to her. 

 

“I’m good, thanks,” Spencer said. “I’ll just get a new one.”

 

“I’ll get it,” Ryan offered, and Spencer gave him a look. Brendon didn’t understand Spencer and Ryan, ever. He knew that they’d known each other since pre-school, and that he was a relatively new addition to their friendship, but they didn’t make sense. They communicated without words, or even facial expressions. Spencer was the only one allowed to go over to Ryan’s house. Ryan was the only one allowed in Spencer’s room with the door shut. 

 

Spencer went back and got her marshmallow. The other four ended up on the grass a bit away from the bonfire. Brendon leaned against Jon. “I’m glad you understand how marshmallows work. Taylor refuses to let them burn.”

 

“That’s the best way to have s’mores,” Jon said. He leaned into the circle and pointed his s’more at Taylor. “Burn your marshmallow. Join us in marshmallow heaven.”

 

“Ew, no,” Taylor said. 

 

“I don’t burn mine,” Ryan said. 

 

Brendon rolled his eyes. “Ryan, if you could eat your s’mores layer by layer without touching the fire, you would. You don’t get to be a part of this debate.”

 

“That’s not fair,” Taylor said as Spencer joined them with a fully constructed s’more. “Ryan and I are the only ones who don’t burn our marshmallows. We’re out matched.”

 

“I guess I throw everything off,” Jon said. He didn’t look mad about it. 

 

“Nah,” Ryan said, quietly. “I think you balance everything.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment/kudos if you enjoyed!


End file.
